Chancellor will also increase minimum wage, but economists warn measures not enough to counteract inflation and cuts

Rishi Sunak will end the public sector pay freeze for million of workers and increase the national minimum wage in the budget on Wednesday, though economists warned the measures would not compensate for inflation rises and cuts to universal credit.

The chancellor is set to confirm that the yearlong apausea on public sector pay, which affected 2.6 million teachers, police and civil servants during the pandemic, will be lifted as the economy recovers from the pandemic.

Economists have failed to take account of aimmense risks and potential loss of lifea, says author of landmark review

Many economic assessments of the climate crisis agrossly undervalue the lives of young people and future generationsa, Prof Nicholas Stern warned on Tuesday, before the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow.

Economists have failed to take account of the aimmense risks and potential loss of lifea that could occur as a result of the climate crisis, he said, as well as badly underestimating the speed at which the costs of clean technologies, such as solar and wind energy, have fallen.

Ex-employee tells UK MPs Mark Zuckerberg ahas unilateral control over 3bn peoplea due to his position

Mark Zuckerberg ahas unilateral control over 3 billion peoplea due to his unassailable position at the top of Facebook, the whistleblower Frances Haugen told MPs as she called for urgent external regulation to rein in the tech companyas management and reduce the harm being done to society.

Haugen, a former Facebook employee who released tens of thousands of damaging documents about its inner workings, travelled to London from the US for a parliamentary hearing and gave qualified backing to UK government proposals to regulate social media platforms and make them take some responsibility for content on their sites.

aWidespreada mistreatment linked to physical pain, fatigue, alcohol abuse and depression, research finds

Women are suffering serious and long-lasting physical and mental health problems from awidespreada emotional bullying, sexual harassment and physical assault in the UK military, research reveals.

Those most likely to have experienced such treatment were younger personnel, those who have held the rank of officer or had a combat or combat support role, according to findings published in the BMJ Military Health journal.

Minister aquite concerneda about delay to finalising UKas participation in a!80bn Horizon Europe scheme

A fresh Brexit row has been blown open with Brussels after David Frost accused the EU of being close to breaching the trade deal struck last Christmas.

He said the UK was agetting quite concerneda about Brussels delaying ratification of the UKas participation in the a!80bn (APS67bn) Horizon Europe research programme, costing British scientists their place in pan-European research programmes.

IOPC says relatives of Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry treated aunacceptablya, but no officers will be disciplined

The Metropolitan police failed the family of two black sisters who went missing and were later found murdered, but no officer should face a disciplinary hearing, the police watchdog has decided.

Bibaa Henry, 46, and Nicole Smallman, 27, were reported missing on Saturday, 6 June 2020, the day after they were last seen at a birthday celebration for the older sister in a north London park.

Wilston Samuel Jackson, who died in 2018, dedicated his life to railway despite facing racism during career

A blue plaque has been unveiled commemorating Britainas first black train driver at Kingas Cross station in London.

Wilston Samuel Jackson, who died in September 2018 at the age of 91 and had adedicated his life to the railwaya, was honoured during a ceremony attended by his relatives and industry leaders at the station on Monday.

Actor proposes system under which people would have limited points to spend on holidays and luxury items

Joanna Lumley has suggested that a system of rationing similar to that seen during wartime, under which people would have a limited number of points to spend on holidays or lavish consumer goods, could eventually help to tackle the climate crisis.

The Absolutely Fabulous actor, who has long campaigned against single-use plastic, said legislation could be the only way to curb the amount of waste produced by the public. aThese are tough times, and I think thereas got to be legislation,a she told the Radio Times.

Calls for Boris Johnson to intervene personally after alacklustrea efforts to tackle lorry driver shortage

The haulage industry has urged Boris Johnson to step up alacklustrea efforts to tackle a shortage of 100,000 HGV drivers, telling him to act now on supply chains or face a Christmas crisis.

Bosses of multiple trade bodies and businesses in the trucking and food industries have written to the prime minister saying not enough had been done to resolve the crisis and urging him to intervene personally.

Recognition as ainterested personsa is a legal first in the US, allowing animals to have their interests heard in court

The offspring of hippos once owned by Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar can be recognized as people or ainterested personsa with legal rights in the US following a federal court order.

The case involves a lawsuit against the Colombian government over whether to kill or sterilize the hippos, whose numbers are growing at a fast pace and pose a threat to biodiversity.

Does your internal monologue play out on a television, in an attic, as a bickering Italian couple a or is it entirely, blissfully silent?

Claudia*, a sailor from Lichfield in her late 30s, is not Italian. She has never been to Italy. She has no Italian family or friends. And she has no idea why a belligerent Italian couple have taken over her inner voice, duking it out in Claudiaas brain while she sits back and listens.

aI have no idea where this has come from,a says Claudia, apologetically. aItas probably offensive to Italians.a The couple are like the family in the Dolmio pasta sauce adverts: flamboyant, portly, prone to waving their hands and shouting. If Claudia has a big decision to make in her life, the Italians take over.

Why is Lord Frost furious about the Northern Ireland protocol given that he negotiated it?

The clue should be in the name. The purpose of the European scrutiny committee ought to be to scrutinise. Only it turns out there are times when the select committee, largely composed of hardline Brexiters, will go to some lengths to do anything but. Especially when their star witness is the Brexit minister, Lord Frost. The man on whom so many of them have staked all their hopes. This is a committee which exists as an echo chamber. It only hears what it wants to hear.

You would have thought that the first thing the ESC might want to ask Frost is how come he is so furious about the Northern Ireland protocol given that he was the person who negotiated it two years ago and told everyone how brilliant it was. But apparently not. The ESC is quite happy for some bygones to remain bygones. Then again many of its members would then be forced to remember they had voted for the withdrawal agreement knowing that it effectively split Northern Ireland from the UK as a separate customs territory and would be subject to EU law. Anything to get Brexit done. Even if it did mean selling out Northern Ireland.

One of just six female judges who have so far managed to reach Britain speaks of fleeing Kabul and finding refuge in Manchester

The day the Taliban arrived in Kabul, Dina* went to her office in the cityas law courts as normal. It was deserted. aOnly the cleaner was there,a the 41-year-old supreme court judge remembers. aThe cleaner said: what are you doing here? Go home!a

Dina gathered as many legal papers and personal documents as she could carry and drove back to the four-storey home she shared with her husband and three children. There, she scanned in the most important bits of paper and burned the lot on her roof terrace. It was painful watching evidence of everything she worked so hard to achieve going up in flames.

From the makers of Vera, this new drama brings together a troubled detective and a murder mystery involving a former prisoner to compellingly twisty effect

First Vera, then Shetland a now Ann Cleevesas crime novel The Long Call has been adapted for television on ITV. Doubtless all are hoping it will give rise to another long-running popular series whose lead character, like Brenda Blethynas DCI Vera Stanhope and Douglas Henshallas DCI Jimmy Perez, can keep pulling in the punters even after the source material is exhausted. On this initial outing (taken from the first of Cleevesas Two River series), the signs are at least promising.

Our hero is DI Matthew Venn, played by Ben Aldridge, who we meet being sent off by his husband to attend his fatheras funeral. This a an affair obviously being conducted by a evangelical sect according to their own rules (and led by preacher Dennis Stephenson, played by Martin Shaw) a he observes from a distance, before being chased off by his estranged mother, Dorothy (Juliet Stevenson). If you listen closely, you can hear the sound of a thousand Vera fans shaking their heads at their dozing spouses and making a key emotional investment in how things are going to turn out. And beneath that, a sign of relief from the commissioning editors.

The dynastic drama marches on with sibling squabbles, a Trojan horse a| and the spookiest box of doughnuts ever sent

Spoiler alert: this recap is for people watching Succession season three, which airs on HBO in the US and Sky Atlantic in the UK. Do not read on unless you have watched episode two.

After last weekas breathless opener, it was time for our second slice of corporate King Lear. Half the inner circle were still stuck in Sarajevo. The rest were playing mental chess in Manhattan. But who had the upper hand?

From avoiding UV to re-dying faded fabric ain a big soup pota, with a bit of care black clothes can last a lifetime

aEveryone I know has a closet full of black clothes,a wrote the late writer and director Nora Ephron in an essay called On Maintenance. I donat like to propagate cliches, but requests for tips on how to prevent black clothes from fading have far outnumbered any others in this series.

So here is some expert advice on how to maintain the black items in your wardrobe because, as Ephron wrote, ablack makes your life so much simpler. Everything matches black, especially black.a

Benefits of increasing minimum wage and unfreezing public sector pay could be eroded by inflation

With a severe cost of living squeeze hitting Britain this winter, Rishi Sunak is betting that an increase in the minimum wage and unfreezing pay for public sector workers will dispel criticism that the Tories are idly standing by.

In the latest sneak preview of Wednesdayas budget, the chancellor has signed off on a 6.6% increase in the national living wage from APS8.91 an hour to APS9.50, designed to help Britainas lowest-paid workers. More than 5 million public sector staff, including police, teachers and the armed forces, will receive an increase after pay was frozen last year.

Pedigrees are being bred to have a range of unusually coloured fur, including lilac, silver, charcoal and even tiger stripes a as well as a host of health problems

Name: Lilac dogs.

Age: About 30 years.

Government suggests current sharp rise is linked to previous lower rates in region rather than Wolverhampton lab errors

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Downing Street has dismissed claims that 43,000 false Covid test results from a Wolverhampton laboratory are to blame for the sharp rise in the number of cases in the south-west of England, claiming that the region may be catching up with the rest of the country.

Experts have linked the high case rates in the west country to the problems at the Wolverhampton laboratory of a company called Immensa, which NHS test and trace suspended from processing PCR Covid tests earlier this month.

Immunologists say Bayern Munichas Joshua Kimmich is mistaken and vaccine misunderstandings persist

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German immunologists have warned that fundamental misunderstandings about the way vaccines work persist among the population, after the Bayern Munich and Germany footballer Joshua Kimmich confirmed over the weekend that he had declined to receive a Covid jab due to concerns over long-term side-effects.

aI have concerns about the lack of long-term studies,a the 26-year-old told Sky Sport. aI am of course aware of my responsibility. I follow all hygiene measures and get tested every two to three days. Everyone should make the decision for themselves.a

Manchester joins Nottingham and Leeds, saying it will be impossible to check the Covid status of all attending

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Bonfire night celebrations are set to be a muted affair for many again this year, with some council-run displays in England cancelled amid concerns about rising rates of coronavirus infections.

Local authorities that have decided not to stage firework displays say public health is a key consideration, as checking the Covid status of those attending would be extremely difficult.

The bill designed to prevent government actions being reconsidered in the courts is un-conservative and undemocratic

• David Davis is the Conservative MP for Haltemprice and Howden

Judicial review is a cornerstone of British democracy. It empowers everyday people to challenge decisions made by public bodies. Whether it be central government or local authorities, rule makers are held accountable by ordinary people. This is a small, but important, check on the balance of powers in our democracy.

But governments do not like judicial review for this exact reason.

David Davis is the Conservative MP for Haltemprice and Howden, and was shadow home secretary from 2003 to 2008

The revealing of titbits once led to a chancelloras resignation, but these days details are trailed via press releases

There was a time when budgets were kept secret until the moment the chancellor of the Exchequer stood up in the Commons to reveal the contents of his red box. For weeks leading up to the big day, the Treasury would go into apurdaha a a news blackout a while officials quietly pieced together their package of measures.

Transgressions of this code were rare, and when they did occur, they had consequences. Hugh Dalton, the Labour chancellor, had to resign in 1947 after revealing some budget titbits to an evening paper journalist on his way into the chamber, wrongly believing it was too late for them to go into print.

Our failures arenat to do with Brexit, but our dull tracks. Maybe Dua Lipaas team can shine a light on where weare going wrong

Every year, the cycle is the same. Perform abysmally at Eurovision. Threaten to boycott it. Make an announcement that there will be some sweeping overhaul to the UKas selection process. Spend some time talking about ABBA, Bucks Fizz, and Katrina and the Waves. Perform abysmally at Eurovision. Repeat to fade.

For even the most optimistic pop fan, it can be hard not to feel cynical about our recent record at Eurovision. Nil points in 2021. Dead last in 2019. Not a single win in nearly 25 years. More than a decade since our last top 10 finish.

Chris Lochery is a staff writer at Popbitch

Threatening online messages to politicians should be taken seriously a but this move is misguided

The aftermath of the horrific killing of Conservative MP David Amess should have been a moment for politicians and the public to unite in an effort to protect democracy. Instead, the discussion has been derailed by a push to ban anonymous social media accounts, which would stifle free speech and democratic rights.

Threatening online messages to politicians and other public figures should be taken seriously. As someone who has experienced online abuse, and a physical attack at the hands of the far right, I know all too well the danger. But, in this tragic event, there seems to be no known connection between the death of Amess and anonymous online posting.

Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist

The transition to heat pumps will affect almost every household in the UK, but it wonat work without public support

The government has finally handed in its climate homework. Less than a fortnight before hosting the Cop26 climate summit a arguably the most important meeting in human history a the new net zero strategy is supposed to tell us how the UK will go from long-term hand-waving to now-term problem-solving.

There is both a lot in there, and not enough. Until the governmentas official advisers give their assessment we wonat know for sure if the plan stands a good chance of achieving legal carbon targets through to 2037. If you want a simple headline for now, Iad offer this: weare pointing in the right direction, but setting off at a jog. Physics demands we sprint.

Max Wakefield is the director of campaigns for the climate action group Possible

Mothers tend to assume the majority of child-rearing responsibility. But without communities and multigenerational living setups we wouldnat have survived as a species

My husband, Dave, and I welcomed a third child into the family in July, and spend much of our days flinging kiddos back and forth, relying heavily on a network of relatives and paid help, and plotting Nasa-level strategies to get out the door. The other morning, as Dave was on his first business trip in almost two years, I found myself nursing the baby while scrambling eggs for my kindergartner and cajoling my preschooler to stop sucking on her marshmallow scratch-and-sniff marker. As I deftly transferred the eggs to a plate, ever so lightly steaming the back of the babyas head, I flashed back to a conversation Iad had before he was born.

Back then, during the early days of the pandemic, wead moved in with my parents, something decided upon after their doctor forbade my mother and father from passing the door jamb. We quarantined separately, then hunkered down together for six months. Despite its complications, the experience was wonderful for all three generations, and particularly so for us in the middle, who can always use extra sets of loving hands for baby wrangling. When I found out I was pregnant again, and with the impending tsunami of three-on-two parenting headed my way, I started poking around to see how other people were doing it.

Sophie Brickman is a contributor to the New Yorker, the New York Times and other publications, and the author of Baby, Unplugged: One Motheras Search for Balance, Reason, and Sanity in the Digital Age

Battersea power station has become a plastic playground, and it has all kinds of ways a architectural and personal a to make someone feel small

I read something once about property developers and how they can privatise the public realm with architecture. It was so insightful and profound that, of course, I immediately forgot who wrote it, where Iad seen it, and six of its nine points. But the rest came flooding back to me when I went to Battersea power station and its surrounds for the first time since the tube opened there.

First, give the impression of heavy surveillance; cameras and security guards, sure, but also panopticon street layouts, an absence of cut-throughs, alleys or alternative routes. Anyone who doesnat belong will know immediately that their unbelonging has been noted. Not having any money is, of course, the surest way to not belong.

Boris Johnsonas government is drifting into another Covid winter showing none of the urgency or seriousness it demands

Compare and contrast the following sets of statements, the first from Westminster. According to the health secretary, Sajid Javid: aWe donat believe that the pressures currently faced by the NHS are unsustainable.a On the contrary, the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, says the health service is on course for agamechanginga investment of nearly APS6bn. Meanwhile, the prime minister urges the public to get a booster jab against Covid. That, he says, is aour way through this wintera.

From the frontline, the NHS looks very different. The president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, Dr Katherine Henderson, says A&E departments are aalready struggling to copea, even before we reach the depths of our second Covid winter. The boss of NHS Wales, Dr Andrew Goodall, warns that the next few months will be among the hardest we have ever faced. The countryas most senior gynaecologist, Dr Edward Morris, worries that the coronavirus surge poses a direct threat to maternity wards, with operations cancelled, specialist staff redeployed and an already huge backlog continuing to build.

By allowing the Texas law banning abortions after six weeks to stand, the supreme court has joined the attack

The announcement by the US supreme court that Texasas new law banning abortions after six weeks would be allowed to stand, until it hears the federal governmentas case against it on 1 November, was a blow to anyone hoping that the court might block attempts to remove womenas constitutional right to abortion. The 1973 decision that established this right, Roe v Wade, is a landmark in the history of the court.

The challenge brought by the Biden administration aims to overturn the Texas law on grounds that the state has violated the courtas authority. By outsourcing enforcement of its abortion ban to private citizens, who since September have been allowed to sue anyone who helps a woman obtain an abortion, Texas legislators have sought ato evade the traditional mechanisms for judicial reviewa, the suit states. The justice department argues that this is a dangerous precedent with the potential to undermine other supreme court decisions. While some employers are offering to relocate staff to other states, the women most likely to be harmed by the ban are the poorest and least mobile, who in Texas are disproportionately women of colour.

Dr Karen Postle says Tory MPsa views on masks would be mildly amusing if it werenat for the gravely serious consequences, while Susannah Kipling despairs that avirtuea is being hijacked as a term of abuse. Plus letters from Emma Blashford-Snell, Mike Terry, Rosemary Gill and Christine Gallagher

Are Tory ministers vying with one another in a contest to portray the most libertarian, populist views in the face of scientific and medical evidence and advice? First we have Jacob Rees-Moggas arrant nonsense about the Tories not needing masks because their convivial spirit is preventing the spread of Covid.

Then the care minister, Gillian Keegan, bizarrely opines that wearing masks is virtue signalling and should be purely personal choice (Tory minister says face masks should not become a asign of virtuea, 22 October). It could be mildly amusing if it werenat for the gravely serious consequences of such ignorant nonsense.

One reader is angered that so little has changed in the way authorities respond to such incidents, and another suggests some ways of tackling the problem

It is always frustrating and disheartening to see that authorities have yet again placed the onus of women protecting themselves from men back on the women themselves rather than recognising that male violence and the normalisation of male privilege in public spaces is the real issue. So in that respect I fully agree with Gaby Hinsliffas column (Young women are sick of being told to stick together and watch their drinks, 21 October).

However, while she seems to think this is a new thing, I have to disagree. She says: aGeneration X didnat go out at night worrying that someone might poison us. Nobody had to offer us lids for our drinks, as they do our daughters.a This suggests either that she moved in a very different space from anyone else that I knew, or that she just didnat recognise what has been totally normal for decades.

• Former Chelsea manager would welcome Old Trafford talks
• Players like SolskjA|r but think he is tactically not up to task

Antonio Conte would be open to discussing taking over at Manchester United if Ole Gunnar SolskjA|r were sacked, while it emerged on Monday that several players are questioning whether the Norwegian can take the team any further.

Several dressing-room sources have told the Guardian that Sundayas 5-0 capitulation to Liverpool at Old Trafford has crystallised a lack of belief in SolskjA|r being a good enough manager for United. The 48-year-old is considered tactically underwhelming, while being well-liked by the squad and within the wider club.

The addition of Ben Stokes to Englandas Ashes squad will lift Joe Rootas men and cause even the most confident of Australians to endure a few sleepless nights

Heas back! The ginger-haired miracle-maker, the swaggering game-changer, the un-stoppered bottle of pungent cologne that promises the world with a single whiff. Yes, against all the odds, England will be drenched in eau de Ben Stokes during the Ashes this winter, and a little goes a very long way.

Stokes has spent much of the summer bedding down, after stepping away from cricket to prioritise his mental health and to rest a left index finger that had been plaguing him since he broke it playing for the Rajasthan Royals in the first part of the IPL in the spring. There were hopes that he might return but none of his England teammates really dared to dream; they just wanted him well.

US Open champion knows she must anot expect too mucha from herself as she prepares for Transylvania Open

As Emma Raducanu completes her preparations before returning to competition in her first professional tournament on Romanian soil in Cluj-Napoca, she has stressed the need for patience with her career as she continues to grow into top-level tennis, despite her early success.

aI skipped a bunch of buildup levels and buildup stages where you normally work your way in, play your way into the game,a she said. aI basically went from the $25ks to playing Masters, (WTA) 500s and 250s. I just need to be patient with myself, not expect too much, and I am learning to accept it is not so smooth. Just bounce back positively.a

• Max Verstappen takes a 12-point lead after victory in Texas
• Mercedes to analyse what went wrong for Hamilton in Austin

The Mercedes team principal, Toto Wolff, has called for calm after Lewis Hamiltonas title ambitions were dented by Max Verstappenas victory in the US Grand Prix.

The seven-times world champion held a two-point advantage over Verstappen heading into the previous race in Turkey on 10 October. Now the Dutchman has a 12-point lead with five races remaining, and the next two, in Mexico and Brazil, are at tracks where Red Bull is widely expected to have a competitive advantage over Mercedes.

• English-based squad members unavailable for match
• Wales bidding to end 68-year wait to beat All Blacks

The odds on Wales ending their 68-year wait for a win against New Zealand in Cardiff on Saturday are slim, with the head coach, Wayne Pivac, missing an entire side because of injuries and player unavailability.

One has to go back to 1953 for the last Welsh victory against the might of the All Blacks and, as he prepares to coach against the land of his birth, Pivac is fighting with one hand tied behind his back.

• Afghanistan 190-4 beat Scotland 60 all out by 130 runs
• aA tough pill to swallowa, says Scotland coach Shane Burger

The Scotland head coach, Shane Burger, said a 130arun defeat against Afghanistan was aa tough pill to swallowa but now expects his side to show their character in the rest of the T20 World Cup. Kyle Coetzeras team had upset the odds to reach the Super 12s, the first time they had gone past the first round of a World Cup, but were unable to contain Afghanistanas batters on a sticky night in Sharjah.

A tournament-high total of 190 for four was always likely to prove challenging, especially with Afghanistanas vaunted spin attack including Rashid Khan, the No 3-ranked bowler in the world. In the event, his introduction came when Afghanistan were well on the way to beginning their tournament with a win in their first international since the Taliban regained control of the nation.

• Rams are in administration and bottom of Championship
• Loyal fans aprovide the foundation to rebuilda, says Kirchner

The US businessman Chris Kirchner has announced his intention to buy the Championship club Derby.

The Rams went into administration last month and have appealed against the 12-point penalty handed out by the English Football League.

The Liverpool forward is the highest-scoring African player in Premier League history after his hat-trick at Old Trafford

aThe new KINGS on the block,a wrote Didier Drogba on Twitter in response to a picture of him with Liverpoolas Mohamed Salah and Sadio ManA(c). Less than 24 hours after Salahas scintillating hat-trick at Old Trafford propelled him past Drogba to become the highest-scoring African player in the Premier League his former Chelsea teammate also retweeted a cartoon in which he places a crown on the Egypt forwardas head.

With Liverpool leading 2-0 against a ragged Manchester United on Sunday and Salah tied with Drogba on 104 goals, there was a sense of inevitability that the big moment would arrive for the player from Nagrig in the Nile Delta. It was fitting that the assist for the record-breaking goal in the 38th minute came from Guineaas Naby KeA-ta, with Salah making it 106 seven minutes later before rounding off the rout by becoming the first visiting player to score a hat-trick at Old Trafford since Real Madridas Ronaldo in 2003 and the first in the Premier League.

Annual target going unmet has endangered developing nationsa trust in Paris deal, say experts

The longstanding target for providing climate finance to the developing world will be met within two years, according to a report ahead of the UN Cop26 climate summit.

But experts said it was ashamefula that developed countries were not doing more to help the poorest in the world, who were struggling with a climate crisis not of their making.

Six things the Guardian is doing to confront the climate emergency

In 2019, the Guardian made a pledge in service of the planet. We declared that the escalating climate crisis was the defining issue of our lifetime, and that quality, trustworthy reporting on the environment was a vital tool to confront it. We promised to provide journalism that showed leadership, urgency, authority and give the climate emergency the sustained attention and prominence it demanded.

Two years later, we are updating our readers and supporters on our work a journalism that puts pressure on the decision-makers who hold our fate in their hands, and institutional commitments designed to ensure that we practice what we preach.

The data send a astarka message to the nations tasked with increasing action at the Cop26 climate summit, UN meteorology chief says

Levels of climate-heating gases in the atmosphere hit record levels in 2020, despite coronavirus-related lockdowns, the UNas World Meteorological Organization has announced.

The concentration of carbon dioxide, the most important greenhouse gas, is now 50% higher than before the Industrial Revolution sparked the mass burning of fossil fuels. Methane levels have more than doubled since 1750. All key greenhouse gases (GHG) rose faster in 2020 than the average for the previous decade and this trend has continued in 2021, the WMO report found.

Exclusive: ex-cabinet minister calls plans an assault on legal system and attempt to avoid accountability

• David Davis: aJudicial review is the peopleas righta

The former cabinet minister David Davis has pledged to lead a rebellion against the governmentas changes to judicial review, calling them a worrying assault on the legal system and attempt to avoid accountability.

Before the first major test of the judicial review and courts bill when it is debated in the Commons on Tuesday, Davis wrote in an article for the Guardian that ministersa plans would atip scales of law in favour of the powerfula.

Conservative politicians release almost identical statements following anger over rejection of environment bill amendment

The government has launched a defensive social media campaign after MPs faced anger from their constituents over last weekas sewage vote, in which an amendment to the environment bill that would have placed a legal duty on water companies not to pump waste into rivers was voted down.

Many Conservative MPs posted almost identical statements on Monday morning after a weekend of anger over the vote. Government sources confirmed to the Guardian that the information in these posts had been supplied by No 10.

Swansea activist Lowri Davies recorded call from officer in afrightening and distressinga attempted recruitment

A secret recording has revealed how a covert police unit in Wales tried to recruit a Black Lives Matter activist to be an informant.

The anti-racism campaigner Lowri Davies shared the recording with the Guardian to raise awareness of what she alleges were adistressinga techniques used to try to manipulate her into providing information to the police.

Supermarketas latest addition tipped to challenge dominance of oat, almond and soy alt-milks

Britons already eat potatoes boiled, baked, roasted and mashed but now the humble spud is being milked for all its worth, with potato milk set to be the next big thing.

It is tipped as a challenger to big selling alt-milks made from oats, almonds and soy, with the supermarket Waitrose predicting consumers will soon be adding it to their shopping trolley or ordering potato milk lattes in coffee shops.

Britain First makes anti-migrant videos at hotels amid warning issue being used to whip up hate

The evacuation of thousands of Afghan refugees to the UK after Kabul fell to the Taliban has triggered an increase in far-right groups targeting hotels where they are being accommodated, according to those monitoring the activities of extremist groups.

Britain First is one of the most prominent organisations involved and, according to its own website, has made more than a dozen unsolicited visits in recent weeks to hotels housing Afghan refugees in areas including Telford, Stoke-on-Trent and Colchester.

Court hears that James Geoghegan told woman he thought she was aplaying hard to geta when she told him to stop

A Metropolitan police officer accused of raping a woman told her he thought she was aplaying hard to geta when she told him no, a court has been told.

She said that she and James Geoghegan kissed consensually in her bedroom, but that he then pulled her pyjama shorts down.

Senior officer says two pieces of ahighly relevanta intelligence on Salman Abedi were received before attack

A senior MI5 officer has told the Manchester Arena inquiry that the intelligence agency downgraded what turned out to be ahighly relevanta evidence about the suicide bomber Salman Abedi.

Speaking from behind wooden screens, the officer, named only as Witness J, said there were two pieces of intelligence received by MI5 about Abedi in the months before the attack that were assessed at the time to relate to possibly non-nefarious or non-terrorist criminality.

Silvana Tenreyro predicts spike in prices in next few months will probably prove to be short-lived

An interest rate rise before Christmas is unlikely despite rising energy prices and supply shortages that are expected to push inflation towards 5%, according to the Bank of England policymaker Silvana Tenreyro.

Setting herself against colleagues Michael Saunders and the governor, Andrew Bailey, who have warned in recent weeks that inflationary pressures could warrant a rapid response by the central bank, Tenreyro said it was unclear whether a rise in the cost of borrowing before Christmas would control the escalating price of imported goods.

Jeremy Fleming says ransomware is proliferating as it is alargely uncontesteda and highly profitable

The head of the UK spy agency GCHQ has disclosed that the number of ransomware attacks on British institutions has doubled in the past year.

Jeremy Fleming, the director of GCHQ, said locking files and data on a useras computer and demanding payment for their release had become increasingly popular among criminals because it was alargely uncontesteda and highly profitable.

Eight people have been arrested on suspicion of murder after teenagersa deaths on Sunday

Two boys who were killed in Essex in what detectives are treating as suspected murders were 16 years old, the local MP has said.

Police were called to an address in Regency Court, Brentwood, at about 1.30am on Sunday. Three people were found injured at the scene and two of them died. The third boyas injuries were not life-threatening or life-changing, police said.

Military declares state of emergency and gunfire reported as protesters flood Khartoum streets

Sudanas military has seized power in a coup, arrested leading civilian politicians including the prime minister, Abdalla Hamdok, and declared a state of emergency as thousands of protesters flooded the streets of Khartoum in opposition.

A health ministry official said late on Monday that seven protesters had been killed and 140 people wounded after security forces fired on demonstrators. As night fell in Khartoum, witnesses described gangs of young men armed with sticks reportedly beating anyone found on the streets.

Ex-employee tells UK MPs Mark Zuckerberg ahas unilateral control over 3bn peoplea due to his position

Mark Zuckerberg ahas unilateral control over 3 billion peoplea due to his unassailable position at the top of Facebook, the whistleblower Frances Haugen told MPs as she called for urgent external regulation to rein in the tech companyas management and reduce the harm being done to society.

Haugen, a former Facebook employee who released tens of thousands of damaging documents about its inner workings, travelled to London from the US for a parliamentary hearing and gave qualified backing to UK government proposals to regulate social media platforms and make them take some responsibility for content on their sites.

Four injured in shooting at Boiseas largest mall, where police say officers exchanged gunfire with suspect

A suspect is in custody after two people were killed and four injured, including a police officer, during a shooting at a shopping mall on Monday in Boise, Idaho.

At a news conference, authorities said officers had exchanged gunfire with the suspect. The majority of the mall has been cleared but police were still looking for any additional victims.

Military declares state of emergency and gunfire reported as protesters flood Khartoum streets

Sudanas military has seized power in a coup, arrested leading civilian politicians including the prime minister, Abdalla Hamdok, and declared a state of emergency as thousands of protesters flooded the streets of Khartoum in opposition.

A health ministry official said late on Monday that seven protesters had been killed and 140 people wounded after security forces fired on demonstrators. As night fell in Khartoum, witnesses described gangs of young men armed with sticks reportedly beating anyone found on the streets.

Economists have failed to take account of aimmense risks and potential loss of lifea, says author of landmark review

Many economic assessments of the climate crisis agrossly undervalue the lives of young people and future generationsa, Prof Nicholas Stern warned on Tuesday, before the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow.

Economists have failed to take account of the aimmense risks and potential loss of lifea that could occur as a result of the climate crisis, he said, as well as badly underestimating the speed at which the costs of clean technologies, such as solar and wind energy, have fallen.

Somber vigil charged with subdued rage over conditions that many lower-paid crew believe were linked to cinematographeras death

A public vigil for the slain cinematographer Halyna Hutchins in Los Angeles on Sunday evening served both as an unofficial memorial event and an outlet for anger over working conditions in Hollywood that many lower-paid crew believe were linked to the 42-year old motheras death.

Several hundred colleagues gathered outside the local union office for the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) which represents workers on film and TV sets, who had been poised to go on strike to protest about pay, long hours and dangers on sets just days before Hutchins was fatally shot by Alec Baldwin on the New Mexico set of the desert western film Rust last week.

The capture of Ontoniel has been called a landmark victory against the drug trade. But he is ajust one node of a networka

Colombiaas most wanted drug lord is behind bars awaiting extradition to the US, after what the countryas president hailed as the biggest blow against the drug trade in 20 years.

Until his capture at the weekend, Dairo Antonio Asuga a better known as Otoniel a headed Colombiaas feared Clan del Golfo cartel, a criminal empire that oversees the production and smuggling of unknown tons of cocaine, as well as extortion rackets, illegal mining operations and arms smuggling.

Blaze on freighter ship has been largely contained, but officials wonat be able to determine damage amid wind and rain

Emergency crews have largely contained a chemical fire aboard a container ship anchored off western Canada, but warned a looming abomb cyclonea storm could complicate efforts to fully assess damage to the ship and surrounding marine ecosystem.

The blaze broke out on Saturday aboard the MV Zim Kingston, a freighter ship carrying mining chemicals, including potassium amylxanthate a a hazardous substance used to help separate ores.

Francis Wayne Alexander was a North Carolina man who moved to Chicago and was killed in the mid-1970s

Authorities in Illinois said on Monday they had identified another victim of John Wayne Gacy, who was convicted of killing 33 young men and boys in the 1970s.

Francis Wayne Alexander, a North Carolina man who moved to Chicago, would have been 21 or 22 when Gacy killed him some time between early 1976 and early 1977, the Cook county sheriff, Tom Dart, told reporters.

The Audubon Naturalist Society, based in the Washington DC area, seeks to distance itself from controversial 19-century ornithologist

A leading US conservation group, the Audubon Naturalist Society (ANS), has announced it will change its name, due to the apaina caused by the 19th-century ornithologist and slaveholder John James Audubon.

The group, which holds wildlife sanctuaries across Washington DC, Virginia and Maryland, said that it had become clear its name did not connect to its diverse set of programmes and that some members and volunteers had objected.

Australiaas Parkes Observatory detected an ET-like pattern that suggested something was out there. But it was just a case of mixed signals

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Astronomers searching for alien life thought theyad spotted signs of intelligence beyond the solar system a but the signals turned out to be human.

Parkes Observatoryas Murriyang radio telescope detected apromisinga radio signals that seemed to be extraterrestrial in 2019. The strange signals appeared to come from Proxima Centauri, the Sunas nearest neighbouring star.

A surgeon dedicated to his patients, Chike Akunyili was on the frontline of peopleas suffering. We must address the problems that drove his killers to pull a trigger just because they could

• Failed state? Why Nigeriaas fragile democracy is facing an uncertain future

On the afternoon of 28 September 2021 my father was murdered in broad daylight by Nigeriaas ubiquitous aunknown gunmena, the name given to unidentified attackers.

His killing, which happened to be on my birthday, was gruesome, cruel and senseless. As he struggled for his life no one helped or comforted him in his hour of need. Worse still, his body was robbed.

An economic crisis aggravated by conflict and drought have caused a collapse in food security since the Taliban takeover

More than half of Afghanistanas population is facing acute hunger as the country has been thrown into one of the worldas largest food crises.

Almost 23 million Afghans will be hungry due to conflict, drought and an economic downturn that is severely affecting livelihoods and peopleas access to food as a harsh winter looms, the UN has warned; an increase of nearly 35% compared with last year.

Recognition as ainterested personsa is a legal first in the US, allowing animals to have their interests heard in court

The offspring of hippos once owned by Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar can be recognized as people or ainterested personsa with legal rights in the US following a federal court order.

The case involves a lawsuit against the Colombian government over whether to kill or sterilize the hippos, whose numbers are growing at a fast pace and pose a threat to biodiversity.

Police seize 171 Lego sets worth thousands from Pike Place seller accused by police of knowingly selling stolen goods

Police in Seattle went undercover to break open what they said was a trafficking ring involving the sale of expensive stolen goods: Lego, taken from an Amazon store.

Saying they had seized 171 sets, police released a picture showing the boxes stacked together.

Does your internal monologue play out on a television, in an attic, as a bickering Italian couple a or is it entirely, blissfully silent?

Claudia*, a sailor from Lichfield in her late 30s, is not Italian. She has never been to Italy. She has no Italian family or friends. And she has no idea why a belligerent Italian couple have taken over her inner voice, duking it out in Claudiaas brain while she sits back and listens.

aI have no idea where this has come from,a says Claudia, apologetically. aItas probably offensive to Italians.a The couple are like the family in the Dolmio pasta sauce adverts: flamboyant, portly, prone to waving their hands and shouting. If Claudia has a big decision to make in her life, the Italians take over.

From avoiding UV to re-dying faded fabric ain a big soup pota, with a bit of care black clothes can last a lifetime

aEveryone I know has a closet full of black clothes,a wrote the late writer and director Nora Ephron in an essay called On Maintenance. I donat like to propagate cliches, but requests for tips on how to prevent black clothes from fading have far outnumbered any others in this series.

So here is some expert advice on how to maintain the black items in your wardrobe because, as Ephron wrote, ablack makes your life so much simpler. Everything matches black, especially black.a

The return of the angriest yet most comforting comedy on television brings the perfect formula of celebrity cameos, snark and screaming

After the 10th season of Curb Your Enthusiasm debuted in January 2020, it seemed like all anyone could talk about was Larry Davidas deployment of a red Maga cap as a tool to conveniently repel people in liberal Los Angeles. Surely season 11, the first of the Covid era, would feature a spin on pandemic life no one could see coming, right? Well, thereas never been anything about this show thatas been predictable; you can practically hear Larry David shrug an aeha at the thought of tackling such an obvious issue.

Which isnat to say the season premiere, airing 21 years after the series premiered as an hour-long HBO special, wonat be considered an instant classic to many. Indeed, we now live in a world where Jon Hamm has spoken Yiddish on television, a true hallelujah moment for an admittedly small percentage of the worldas population, but a gift wrapped in a bow to Larry Davidas most dedicated core. (We knew Hanukkah was coming early this year, but not this early.)

While training as a chaplain and caring for societyas most vulnerable, I learned that spiritual care is an act of social justice

The patient, who Iall call RL, was homeless and came into Bellevueas psychiatric ward experiencing hallucinations. His struggle with severe mental illness was similar to many of the other homeless people I saw on my daily commute through New York.

It was July 2020, and I had just started my year as a chaplain-in-training on the ward. Already, I was struggling to help him. He couldnat hold a conversation, slept most of the day, and whenever awake, would stare blankly at the television in the activity room and talk to himself. Yet occasionally, when I spoke to him, his eyes would light up and Iad catch him in a moment of clarity. Wead talk for a minute about barbecue or baseball, two subjects I knew he liked, before the light clicked off and he walked away.

From a shocking drama set in the cut-throat world of Koreaas elite universities to a thriller about a time-travelling walkie talkie, hereas what to binge

Reply 1988 begins in the year South Korea hosted the Olympics and follows the lives of five friends in the neighbourhood of Ssangmun-dong in northern Seoul: carefree Deok-sun, fellow trouble-maker Dong-ryong, model student Sun-woo, grumpy Jung-hwan and Choi Taek, a reserved Baduk (Go) player.

Vaccines and new antiviral drugs cause for optimism as deaths and cases fall but Americans urged to be careful amid variant threat

The number of new Covid cases and deaths in the United States has been in a steady decline since early September, prompting many infectious disease experts to conclude that the worst impacts of the pandemic in America are probably in the past.

But in the same breath, those experts also caution that itas not yet safe to abandon safeguards against the virus. Thatas because parts of the US population and much of the world remain unvaccinated, which could allow for outbreaks and dangerous new variants of the virus to emerge.

Governor says he will give bonus to officers from other states who have lost jobs by refusing government mandates

The Republican governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, plans to offer $5,000 bonuses to lure police officers from other states who resist vaccine mandates.

aWeare actually actively working to recruit out-of-state law enforcement,a DeSantis told Fox News.

Warning comes after Keir Starmer calls for councils to be allowed to use exclusion orders to protect schools

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aSubstantial numbersa of people influenced by conspiracy theories are now willing to take direct action against schools administering vaccines, experts on online misinformation have warned, as Labour called for exclusion orders to block activists.

Amid findings that close to 80% of schools had been targeted by anti-vaxxers, Keir Starmer said it was asickeninga that those against vaccinations were demonstrating where children are educated.

In just one term, Trump was able to appoint 33% of US supreme court justices and 30% of US appellate judges. Theyall serve for life

For many Americans, Donald Trump will be remembered as the first US president to be twice impeached, to have supported, or even incited, an insurrection against democracy, and for allowing thousands to die due to his abject failure to lead the nation in fighting the Covid-19 pandemic. But for many other Americans, his true legacy will be his enduring impact on the third branch a the federal judiciary.

The expansion of executive power, and the diminishment of legislative power due to partisan gridlock, is a well-known story. Governing by executive order has become the new normal. But it is the stealthy and steady rise of the power of the judicial branch that has caught many Americans off-guard.

Mothers tend to assume the majority of child-rearing responsibility. But without communities and multigenerational living setups we wouldnat have survived as a species

My husband, Dave, and I welcomed a third child into the family in July, and spend much of our days flinging kiddos back and forth, relying heavily on a network of relatives and paid help, and plotting Nasa-level strategies to get out the door. The other morning, as Dave was on his first business trip in almost two years, I found myself nursing the baby while scrambling eggs for my kindergartner and cajoling my preschooler to stop sucking on her marshmallow scratch-and-sniff marker. As I deftly transferred the eggs to a plate, ever so lightly steaming the back of the babyas head, I flashed back to a conversation Iad had before he was born.

Back then, during the early days of the pandemic, wead moved in with my parents, something decided upon after their doctor forbade my mother and father from passing the door jamb. We quarantined separately, then hunkered down together for six months. Despite its complications, the experience was wonderful for all three generations, and particularly so for us in the middle, who can always use extra sets of loving hands for baby wrangling. When I found out I was pregnant again, and with the impending tsunami of three-on-two parenting headed my way, I started poking around to see how other people were doing it.

Sophie Brickman is a contributor to the New Yorker, the New York Times and other publications, and the author of Baby, Unplugged: One Motheras Search for Balance, Reason, and Sanity in the Digital Age

The bill designed to prevent government actions being reconsidered in the courts is un-conservative and undemocratic

• David Davis is the Conservative MP for Haltemprice and Howden

Judicial review is a cornerstone of British democracy. It empowers everyday people to challenge decisions made by public bodies. Whether it be central government or local authorities, rule makers are held accountable by ordinary people. This is a small, but important, check on the balance of powers in our democracy.

But governments do not like judicial review for this exact reason.

David Davis is the Conservative MP for Haltemprice and Howden, and was shadow home secretary from 2003 to 2008

The majority of Americans support legal abortion. Redistricting has allowed extremism to flourish without fear of repercussion

America is at a crossroads when it comes to abortion. In 2021, state legislatures have passed an unprecedented 106 anti-abortion bills. State lawmakers in five states are preparing legislation similar to Texasas SB 8, an effective total abortion ban that enshrines a new kind of vigilantism directed at medical providers and private citizens.

In this dangerous moment, supporters of legal abortion must understand that raising our voices is not going to change anything unless we also push for major, immediate democratic reforms including ending the filibuster, enshrining federal voting rights, expanding the supreme court and establishing fair redistricting.

Meaghan Winter is a freelance magazine writer and author of the book All Politics is Local: Why Progressives Must Fight for the States

No more cartoons about climate change or genocidal cruelty or dead-eyed greed or global disinformation cults

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Andy Reidas team could always afford to make mistakes on defense because of their brilliant offense. But even that is starting to splutter

When the NFL season began, the question was whether anybody in the AFC could topple the Kansas City Chiefs. Now the question is very different: are we entirely sure the Chiefs are even a good team? The Tennessee Titans humiliated the Chiefs 27-3 on Sunday, in a loss that could propel Kansas City into an identity crisis.

At the moment they look nothing like the team that went to two straight Super Bowls, winning one of them. Their record this season stands at 3-4, and they face the very real possibility of missing the playoffs.

• Former Chelsea manager would welcome Old Trafford talks
• Players like SolskjA|r but think he is tactically not up to task

Antonio Conte would be open to discussing taking over at Manchester United if Ole Gunnar SolskjA|r were sacked, while it emerged on Monday that several players are questioning whether the Norwegian can take the team any further.

Several dressing-room sources have told the Guardian that Sundayas 5-0 capitulation to Liverpool at Old Trafford has crystallised a lack of belief in SolskjA|r being a good enough manager for United. The 48-year-old is considered tactically underwhelming, while being well-liked by the squad and within the wider club.

• Max Verstappen takes a 12-point lead after victory in Texas
• Mercedes to analyse what went wrong for Hamilton in Austin

The Mercedes team principal, Toto Wolff, has called for calm after Lewis Hamiltonas title ambitions were dented by Max Verstappenas victory in the US Grand Prix.

The seven-times world champion held a two-point advantage over Verstappen heading into the previous race in Turkey on 10 October. Now the Dutchman has a 12-point lead with five races remaining, and the next two, in Mexico and Brazil, are at tracks where Red Bull is widely expected to have a competitive advantage over Mercedes.

• Quarterback is subject of lawsuits alleging sexual misconduct
• Teams still willing to trade for player despite legal troubles

Deshaun Watson could be traded to the Miami Dolphins or the Carolina Panthers in the coming weeks, according to multiple reports.

Watson, one of the most talented quarterbacks in the NFL, has been inactive for the Houston Texans this season after he became the subject of 22 separate lawsuits, alleging he engaged in sexual assault and inappropriate behaviour while receiving massages. The 26-year-old denies any wrongdoing.

US Open champion knows she must anot expect too mucha from herself as she prepares for Transylvania Open

As Emma Raducanu completes her preparations before returning to competition in her first professional tournament on Romanian soil in Cluj-Napoca, she has stressed the need for patience with her career as she continues to grow into top-level tennis, despite her early success.

aI skipped a bunch of buildup levels and buildup stages where you normally work your way in, play your way into the game,a she said. aI basically went from the $25ks to playing Masters, (WTA) 500s and 250s. I just need to be patient with myself, not expect too much, and I am learning to accept it is not so smooth. Just bounce back positively.a

The Liverpool forward is the highest-scoring African player in Premier League history after his hat-trick at Old Trafford

aThe new KINGS on the block,a wrote Didier Drogba on Twitter in response to a picture of him with Liverpoolas Mohamed Salah and Sadio ManA(c). Less than 24 hours after Salahas scintillating hat-trick at Old Trafford propelled him past Drogba to become the highest-scoring African player in the Premier League his former Chelsea teammate also retweeted a cartoon in which he places a crown on the Egypt forwardas head.

With Liverpool leading 2-0 against a ragged Manchester United on Sunday and Salah tied with Drogba on 104 goals, there was a sense of inevitability that the big moment would arrive for the player from Nagrig in the Nile Delta. It was fitting that the assist for the record-breaking goal in the 38th minute came from Guineaas Naby KeA-ta, with Salah making it 106 seven minutes later before rounding off the rout by becoming the first visiting player to score a hat-trick at Old Trafford since Real Madridas Ronaldo in 2003 and the first in the Premier League.

Nuno seems scared of his Spurs bench, Manchester United players must stand up and Joshua King haunts Goodison Park

Substitutions have been permitted in English league football since 1965, but maybe nobody told Nuno EspAArito Santo. The Tottenham manager has been curiously reluctant to use his well-stocked bench in recent weeks, and even as his side sleepwalked to defeat at West Ham, he waited until the 84th minute to make changes. Even if the likes of Dele Alli and Steven Bergwijn have hardly sparkled of late, a worrying gulf is opening between the first XI and the rest. Meanwhile, Nunoas continuing stubbornness a aThe game was under control,a he explained curtly a is hardly likely to endear him to the fanbase. Jonathan Liew

Match report: West Ham 1-0 Tottenham

Match report: Arsenal 3-1 Aston Villa

Match report: Brentford 1-2 Leicester

PM urges firms to reduce use of single-use plastics and dismisses recycling as aa red herringa

It is atouch and goa whether Britain will broker deals adequate enough to curb irreversible climate change at Cop26, Boris Johnson has admitted, as he claimed that encouraging people to recycle more aisnat the answera.

The prime minister appeared to lower expectations about whether the global summit of leaders that begins this week would be a success, after the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, confirmed for the first time that he would not attend ain the light of the coronavirus situationa, according to Downing Street.

The data send a astarka message to the nations tasked with increasing action at the Cop26 climate summit, UN meteorology chief says

Levels of climate-heating gases in the atmosphere hit record levels in 2020, despite coronavirus-related lockdowns, the UNas World Meteorological Organization has announced.

The concentration of carbon dioxide, the most important greenhouse gas, is now 50% higher than before the Industrial Revolution sparked the mass burning of fossil fuels. Methane levels have more than doubled since 1750. All key greenhouse gases (GHG) rose faster in 2020 than the average for the previous decade and this trend has continued in 2021, the WMO report found.

Itas the phrase that will be on every world leaderas lips at the Cop26 summit a and it summarises the ambitious plan that will be central to efforts to limit the ravages of the climate crisis. So what is net zero? What kind of world could it create? And what needs to happen to to make it a reality?

As the days count down to the Cop26 summit, the phrase anet zeroa is coming up increasingly often. Scientists, activists, environmentalists and politicians use it as shorthand for the necessary steps to stop adding to the total amount of carbon in the atmosphere. The UK set out its net zero strategy last week, and called it a aglobal green industrial revolutiona, even as others said it fell short of what is needed. Many see an international adoption of a target to get to net zero by 2050 a and hitting interim milestones on the way to that final goal a as crucial to our hopes of limiting global temperature rises, and hence the most devastating impacts of climate change.

And yet as recently as 2015, the agreement set out after the Cop summit in Paris made no reference to net zero. So how did a consensus emerge that net zero by 2050 was the most effective way of bringing global heating under control? What will it take to bring it about, and are existing plans set out by the UK and others enough to do it? What would a world where we have achieved net zero look like? And just how important are the Glasgow talks in bringing it about?

The serial killer show is back after an eight-year hiatus. Its star discusses psychopathy, nostalgia and his time on Six Feet Under

Michael C Hallas face is weirdly immutable a he looks no different now, at 50, from a decade or more ago, when he would loom down from giant posters as Dexter, the footloose serial killer. In fact, he looks pretty much the same as he did in Six Feet Under, playing David Fisher, right at the start of the century a he has one of those very structured faces, its features and angles carved so surely that thereas nowhere for them to disintegrate into.

Which is fortunate, since, in a highly unusual move, Showtime has brought Dexter back to life after an eight-year hiatus, and what looked like an extinction event, back in 2013. Dexter: New Blood has more complexity and less puckishness, certainly, than the first two series. Heall talk about that in a minute, but first, he says: aI have to just respond to this text very briefly. My wife and I, our dog is sick and she wants to make sure sheas OK.a Heas now married to Morgan Macgregor, a journalist on the Los Angeles Review of Books, after an elopement and brief marriage to his Dexter co-star Jennifer Carpenter in 2008. His first marriage was to the fabulous Broadway hoofer Amy Spanger in the early 00s.

The bust-up with Harvey Weinstein, Irvine Welshas verdict on the script (atoo effetea), the problem with the excrement scene a| the cast and crew relive the making of the classic 1996 film

The pioneering pianist blazed a trail through 1970s jazz and electronica and was lauded by 1980s pop royalty. Now a new generation of fans, including Clairo and Mac DeMarco, hope to bring her an international audience

Akiko Yano is laughing as she tells the story of her debut album, Japanese Girl. Twenty-one years old and unable to speak a word of English, she found herself directing a recording session in LA with US rock outfit Little Feat. aI still donat know how it was possible,a she says, over a video call from her home in New York City. aYou play this, you play that!a So clear was her vision, Little Feat tried to return their fee because they thought they hadnat earned it. She smiles. aI feel sorry about that now.a

This singularity of purpose has been a constant in Yanoas 50-year career. A pianist with an unmistakable voice, a love of synthesisers and an ear for pop melodies, Yano is one of the most celebrated Japanese musicians of her generation. Central to the techno-pop sound that made global stars of Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO) in the late 1970s, she blazed a trail that has yet to be fully recognised outside Japan, though hopefully a current reissue campaign will help, along with the vocal approval of a generation of young leftfield artists such as Clairo and Jessy Lanza. aThese are such big, beautiful songs,a enthuses another fan, indie-popper Mac DeMarco, over the phone to me. aThere is this fearlessness in the music that really puts gas in my tank.a

Returning to the stage to play Faye Treadwell, formidable manager of the Drifters, the singer and actor explains how she faced down sexism and racism to forge her own career path in Britain

Beverley Knight strides out of rehearsals for her new musical and breaks out a smile, a few bars of song and a box of biscuits. aThatas a bit more like it a come on!a Itas the end of a long dayas practice for The Drifters Girl and Knight doesnat seem the least fatigued a she is cheery, focused and unerringly upfront. What does she think of the governmentas initial pandemic response? aA deer in the headlights.a Luvvie-bashers? aThey need the arts more than they think.a Another winter lockdown? aHell no! Weare on stage!a And diversity in theatre? aItas not just needing a few more black people up in this building. We need all kinds of everyone.a

Knight became famous as a singer, but has been involved in the theatre, on and off, since she was five. This musical gives her her latest lead role as Faye Treadwell, formidable manager of the Drifters, the honeyed R&B vocal group behind the 50s and 60s classics There Goes My Baby, Saturday Night at the Movies and Under the Boardwalk. aShe was ex-tra-ord-in-ar-y,a she declares, slapping out the syllables on the table with joy and awe. The Driftersa music has been with Knight, 48, since her dad crooned Save the Last Dance for Me around their Wolverhampton home. Itas easy to be sentimental about their lush ballads of last dances, first kisses and magic moments, but those harmonies give the songs a smoothness that belies their fractious backstage dramas. Treadwell took over managing the band from her husband, George, when he died in 1967, and transformed their fortunes. aShe was a firefighter,a reckons Knight. aA couple of the Drifters, Faye had to kick to the kerb a theyad endure anything but being told what to do by a woman.a After more than 25 years in the music business, Knight can relate. aMy own career has been about maintaining control of the art at all costs. A lot of it has been men trying to tell me what to look like, what to sound like.a

From Office Space to the Rakesa 22 Grand Job, Guardian critics suggest culture to cope with the pressure, politics and crushing ennui of earning a living

Fashions in workplace design have changed since Office Space. When Mike Judge released his cult comedy of unhappy software programmers in 1999 a two years before Ricky Gervais launched The Office a his characters were still penned up in cubicles. The film flopped, but it would be nice to think that on some subliminal level it hastened the end of that particular era. Of course, what followed a hot-desks and the open-plan a was just as dreadful. But that much was in keeping with what Judge told us all along. A wilful printer can be destroyed. The rest of it? The pass-agg line manager? The presenteeism and paranoia? The hatefully chipper co-worker diagnosing a acase of the Mondaysa? All that is eternal. You canat change the office, Office Space said. You can only leave it. Danny Leigh

The outspoken comedian, actor and director talks about the state of comedy, his late friend Robin Williams and why Jerry Seinfeld has a problem with him

These days, Bobcat Goldthwait prefers not to do the voice. Anyone who knows his name probably knows that voice, a guttural yowl that makes him sound like a cartoon character being smashed with an oversized mallet. It made the comedian, film-maker and actor a star during his tenure in the Police Academy films back in the 80s, but no one wants to be reduced to a bit, and so he retired the quasi-persona in 2018.

aIt was a decision I made,a Goldthwait tells the Guardian on a phone call from Los Angeles. aI went back on the road after directing the Kimmel show, and I wasnat looking forward to it a| The voice didnat suit me. But I know people, theyave worked hard all week and thatas what they expect, so I probably perpetuated it a little longer than I should have. I was in Nashville, and I actually have footage of me going out for the first time, knowing I just couldnat do the character. I have an OK set, but people in the audience were yelling, aDo the voice!a Itas my daughteras favorite heckle.a

Detective fiction tells a story pieced together by some clever person a and in a video game, thatas you

In one of her best books, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Agatha Christie puts these words into the mouth of her least favourite character, Hercule Poirot: aUnderstand this, I mean to arrive at the truth. The truth, however ugly in itself, is always curious and beautiful to seekers after it.a

All detective stories are an attempt to reflect this. Uncovering the truth through clever reasoning, observation and logic is wondrous. You are forced to look at the world anew: a misplaced chair is no longer just a chair, but indicative of a killeras escape; a removed lightbulb tells us the killer did not want to be seen. In the eyes of a detective (or a great detective writer), everyday objects are imbued with alien significance. They no longer fit where we think they fit and when we find their proper place, a clear picture emerges. Poirot was a great detective because he obsessed over order and was more sensitive to misplacement. Sherlock Holmes could see tiny stains on a hat and understand the entire life of its wearer.

Disaster film serves only to highlight that petty human dramas seem insignificant compared with the global climate crisis

Given the increasing frequency of extreme-weather-related catastrophes, youad think there would be more disaster films out there like this effort, which has a massive tornado hitting middle America at the centre of its drama. That said, the way director Lindsay Gossling a who wrote the screenplay and co-wrote the story with Travis Farncombe a sticks closely to the traditional templates of calamity cinema may explain why there are relatively few such movies. In the end, the problems of the characters whose lives are interrupted by natural catastrophes seem small compared with the scale of the destruction. And on a grander scale, the melodramas at the heart of films like this seem trivial when we take into account climate crisis on a global scale. Is it really so important if a man survives his car being overturned when the fate of Earth is at stake?

Whatas more, like so many other film-makers, Gossling canat resist playing God and loading the dice so that in the final reckoning, itas mostly the bad people who are punished, and the good survive, albeit with injuries, while tricky problems are solved by weird misfortune. Case in point: the subplot here about a young woman, Maddy (Sofia Vassilieva), who spends most of her time before the tornado hits worrying about her unwanted pregnancy. The radiographer who examines her, overbearing Christian Tammy (Anne Heche), unprofessionally tries to talk her into keeping the child. Later, Tammy and her farmer husband Rick (Trace Adkins) react with homophobic panic when their son Luke (Will Peltz) comes out to them. But once the twister devastates the town they live in, the injuries meted out will make some of these problems irrelevant.

Rabia Kamara from Richmond, Virginia is sweet on success after winning the Ben & Jerryas prize a and her ice-cream business is booming

Business is booming for Rabia Kamara.

Last month, the 33-year-old co-owner of Ruby Scoops Ice Cream & Sweets in Richmond, Virginia, took first place in the Food Network competition series, Ben & Jerryas Clash of the Cones. Her winning recipe was a sweet celebration of identity, aptly named aBiaas Black Joy Sundaea a a medley of vanilla and dulce de leche ice-creams with Old Bay caramel, dark chocolate fudge brownies, and hazelnut toffee blondie accents.

Why should the calendaras creepiest date be forever in the grip of Big Pumpkin? Here are some horrifying delights, whether you most fancy monster feet or zombie brains

I will never understand why pumpkins have the monopoly on Halloween, as they have for two or three decades. People used to make lanterns from turnips, or swedes, but pumpkins are just easier to carve even if there is nothing remotely scary about them, just as there is nothing melancholy about a cabbage or spellbinding about kohlrabi. And donat even get me started on apumpkin-spicea. So, in the spirit of advocating a pumpkin-free Halloween, here are 10 spooky recipes, all mercifully created without the tyranny of Big Pumpkin.

Andy from Glasgow met Becky from Illinois on a Greyhound bus, defending her from the attentions of a crass man in front of them. Ten hours later, they were engaged

When Andy boarded a Greyhound bus with his friend Steven in the summer of 1990, he was disappointed to find there was nowhere to sit together. They were in the US for work meetings and had planned to spend extra time touring the country. aIad been in Orlando to sign a contract to write and design comic books,a he says. aMy buddy and I were going from Florida to Montana, then on to San Diego for Comic Con.a He found a free seat next to Becky, who was taking her children home on the bus from Disney World.

As he approached, Becky reluctantly removed her belongings from the spare seat. aI had hoped nobody would sit there,a she admits. aA creepy guy in front had started talking to me and bothering me. He kept asking why I didnat have a husband. I just wanted to be left alone.a

Pedigrees are being bred to have a range of unusually coloured fur, including lilac, silver, charcoal and even tiger stripes a as well as a host of health problems

Name: Lilac dogs.

Age: About 30 years.

The list of attractions and diverse locations in such a sparsely populated region is staggering. Our writer reconnects with his childhood roots

There is a moment in Ozark, the brilliant Netflix drama series about a dodgy accountant forced to launder money for a drug cartel, when the main character reveals a plan to relocate to the lakes in Missouri and invest in an area that has, as he puts it, amore shoreline than the entire coast of Californiaa.

The notion is that the expansive shore is an overlooked and underdeveloped resource in which the primal human joy to be found in proximity to expanses of water could be better exploited. It echoes my own thoughts about Fermanagh, the most westerly county in Northern Ireland, where I was born and raised.

Rain and strong winds accompanied the arrival of an atmospheric river, shattering records in several cities

A huge storm surged south in California on Monday after flooding highways, toppling trees, and causing rock slides and mud flows across northern part of the state over the weekend. The state, which has spent months mired in a devastating drought, is expected to be soaked through Tuesday.

Santa Barbara county officials said the storm was expected to produce roughly 1in of rain per hour, threatening the newly charred coastal areas burned in the Alisal fire. Residents were ordered to stay in and lock their doors and windows or move to higher ground.

Shapewear company founder Sara Blakely surprised employees at a party to mark Spanxas new $1.2bn valuation

The chief executive and founder of the shapewear company Spanx has surprised employees with two first-class plane tickets and $10,000 each.

Speaking at a party last Thursday to mark the companyas new $1.2bn valuation, after the investment giant Blackstone purchased a majority stake, Sara Blakely expressed her gratitude for 21 years of success.

Ilhan Omar, a co-sponsor of the resolution to honor the musician who died in 2016, said he achanged the arc of music historya

A resolution introduced on Capitol Hill on Monday seeks to award the congressional gold medal to Prince, in recognition of the late pop staras aindelible mark on Minnesota and American culturea.

Past recipients of the highest civilian honor bestowed by Congress include George Washington, the Wright Brothers, Rosa Parks, Mother Teresa and the Dalai Lama.

Students at historically Black college in DC say conditions are deplorable and would rather sleep at student center than dorms

Mold. Rats. Cockroaches. Mushrooms growing under the sink. For undergraduate students attending Howard University, a historically Black college in Washington, these and other conditions have prompted students to protest, staging a sit-in and sleeping at the universityas main student center for the past two weeks.

Organizing on social media apps like Instagram and TikTok under the #Blackburntakeover, as many as 150 students have been staging a sit-in at Howardas Blackburn University Center, described as the asocial hub of the universitya by Howard.

Three siblings aged 15, 10 and seven discovered in Houston, telling police their brother had been dead a year

The skeletal remains of a child and three surviving siblings who appeared to have been abandoned were found inside an apartment in the Houston area.

The childrenas mother and her boyfriend were located, questioned and released without charges being filed, police said on Monday.